"I Yam What I Yam"

       Popeye the Sailor Man

In my first post here, I spoke about my inspiration to start this blog.  Now I would like to explain in the first of 2 parts here, some of the major influences in my life that made me who I am and might explain why I chose the life path that I have followed.

Behavioral scientists for years have studied human behavior in an attempt to find out why we do the things we do.  One idea that they still can't decide on is how do we become what we are.  The debate is usually framed as 'Nature' vs "Nurture', or simply put, are we essentially born with our personality and we behave in a way that we are programmed to follow because of our genes, or is our personality mostly formed by our environment.  There is ample evidence to support both sides of this question.  

I have always been interested in people and human behavior, I think a lot about my own behavior and I keenly observe other peoples behavior.  I find it a fascinating subject and I am always trying to be a better person, and the more I understand, the better chance I have of improving myself and my interactions with others.  I am often frustrated by the behavior of others, not just the people around me but the human race in general.  But I can't have a lot of influence on others, so I try to focus my energy on trying to be a better person.  Every now and then I succeed!  But this post isn't a discussion on human psychology, I want to tell you some of the things that made me what I am, whatever that is.

I suppose I need to begin at the beginning.   I was born on November 3 1955.  My mother had given birth to my older sister 7 years earlier.  I also happened to share the uterus with another human, my fraternal twin brother Chuck (Charles). I am pretty sure my brother and I weren't planned, we were the proverbial 'accident'. Back in 1955 there weren't ultrasound devices to peer inside a pregnant woman and see what was happening.  When my mother went for doctor visits, the doctor never noticed that there were 2 little hearts beating instead of just 1.  I think it's safe to say that my mother was quite shocked when after I had come out into the world, the doctor discovered another baby.  According to my mother, the doctor told her, "Mrs. Lada, it appears we have a multiple birth."  I think my mother, 29 years old at the time, never fully recovered form this fateful, life changing announcement for the rest of her life!   

So already I was different than many other children.  Fraternal twins are not terribly uncommon, identical twins are far more rare, but any multiple birth is not a very common occurrence.  In answer to the first question many people ask when I tell them I am a twin, I am older by 15 minutes.  I'm not sure why that is so important but it seems many people need to know.  So now you know!  Thank goodness my sister was at an age where she could help my mother because having two babies at the same time is much more than twice as much work than having one.  Incidentally, 3 years ago my daughter, my only child gave birth to a boy and a girl.  I was quite a bit larger than my brother, heavier and longer and that trend continued until well into our adulthood until my brother caught up to me some years ago although I am still a little taller than he is.  But I believe at this point in time, he weighs more than I do.

I was fortunate to grow up in a time when mothers often could stay at home and raise the children, and the man in the family went to work.  I remember my childhood as being generally happy in a safe and secure, loving environment, even if I did have to share everything with my brother.  I was a pretty quiet, mellow kid and my brother was the opposite.  He was quite active and a bit of a troublemaker.  I think Chuck's favorite hobby was to annoy me. If you ask him, he might not see it that way.  Don't believe him, it's true!  Some twins, particularly identical twins often get along well together.  Some don't.  As boys we often fought, both verbally and physically.  I seem to remember as we got older that we couldn't go to bed at night without a wrestling match.  Don't get me wrong, there were advantages to having a twin brother.  We would often play together, especially on rainy days when we couldn't go outside.  We could gang up on our parents and support each other, and other things.  But to be honest, I often wished that I had been born without a twin brother.  No, I haven't and never will get over it!  

I was basically a shy, quiet kid and I often preferred to curl up with a book, build a ship model or engage in some quiet solitary activity.  We had a huge amount of kids in our neighborhood, and we would often meet in groups and do kid stuff.  I never had a lot of athletic ability, I was never very coordinated, so playing baseball or football with the neighborhood kids never gave me a lot of pleasure.  I had a very active imagination, and I had no problem living in my little fantasy world, whether it was in our cellar or sitting on a cliff looking at Lake Erie, which was 2 blocks from our house.  I am sure that growing up so close to a huge body of water is why to this day, being around or in the water is my favorite place to be.

We went to a small elementary school 2 blocks from our house.  Because my brother and I were born in November and we started kindergarten when we were 4 years old, we were some of the youngest kids in our class.  The school had 2 classes for each grade so fortunately my brother and I were always in separate classes.  My brother and I were identified as 'bright' kids'  as a result of IQ testing in kindergarten.  I was never the top kid in elementary school, but I did well in most subjects, especially reading.  I had already learned to read before I went to kindergarten and I've been an avid reader all of my life.  

When I was 7 years old I made my first trip to Italy with my mother, sister and brother to see my mother's family.  When I was 3 years old my mother took my sister and brother to Italy and I stayed home with my father and my grandmother watched me when my father was working.  My mother decided taking 2 active 3 year old's on such a trip, even with my sister's help was out of the question, so she took my more active brother.  Like the earlier trip my mother made, we traveled by ship.  Air travel was possible at the time, in 1963 however my mother preferred going by ship and there were still frequent ships still making the crossing.  After a 7 day voyage we landed in Naples, and spent a day or two with family there and then went to Rome by train, where my Italian grandparents and my mother's 2 sisters lived, and where my mother was born and raised.  

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that making such a voyage at a young age is the reason I still love to travel and see other countries to this day.  Also the fact that we stayed with my grandparents and lived like Romans for the 3 months we were there, gave me desire in my later travels to not only see the typical tourist sights, but to see how the inhabitants of the city actually lived their daily lives.  The memories of that trip remain with me to this day and the impact it had on my view of the world and how I chose to lead my adult life was tremendous.  When I started travel as an adult, I would often just wander down little streets, seek out little local restaurants and if possible try to interact with the locals as much as possible.  That is still what I do when I travel around today.  

My father joined us that trip about 3 weeks before we returned to the US.  When it was time to go back, we took a train from Rome to Le Havre, France where we were to board another ship to take us to New York City.  We stopped along the way during the train trip.  We spent a couple of days in Switzerland in Bern and Zurich.  We then went to Paris for another couple of days and then arrived in Le Havre to return home.  The train journey was amazing as well, seeing the Alps for hours from the train window was an incredible sight as well as seeing other foreign cities in Switzerland and France.  All in all it was a remarkable adventure for a small boy and as I said, it had a big impact on the rest of my life. 

I had the opportunity to return to Italy 2 more times as a teen.  The next trip was in 1970, I wasn't quite 15 years old yet  My mother , my brother and I went by plane, my first but definitely not my last flying experience.  In 1970 flying long distances wasn't nearly as common as it is today.  The planes were comfortable, the seats were spacious and people usually dressed well when they flew.  Many adults smoked at the time and you could smoke on the plane, and they gave you actual silverware to eat the airline food.  They had stewardesses, not flight attendants at the time.  My sister was attending university by this time, so she didn't go.  We spent about 6 weeks in Italy, and we went to a small town on the Mediterranean sea to visit one of my mother's aunt's who lived there, for a week.  The aunt's daughter, my mother's cousin was my mother's only relative that also moved to the US and she was visiting at the time with her 3 children, 2 of which were around my age.  So we spent a week on a beautiful beach, we met several other Italian kids and we had a great time swimming and talking and just having fun.  I think it was the only time in my life that my pale, Northern European skin that I inherited from my father's Polish family ever tanned, not just burned.

The next trip I made to Italy was in 1973 and it was just my mother and I which I really enjoyed.  We actually left right before my senior year of high school started and I missed the 1st month of my last year of high school.  We stayed in Rome, and made a trip north to the beautiful, small city of Florence to visit a good friend of my mother.  I spent a lot of the trip walking all over the middle of Rome exploring on my own.  By that time I knew the main part of Rome pretty well and I walked for miles everyday.  By this time my sister had graduated from university, she had gotten married in between her junior and senior year, and after graduation, my sister and her husband went in the Peace Corps and spent 2 years in Africa, in Kenya.  Rather than come straight back to the US, they came to Europe, rented a car and spent several months camping and traveling around Europe.  They met us in Rome and we spent a week together having a nice time and catching up with them.  

So that is the first part of some of the life events that shaped my view of the world and planted many ideas in my head that led me to become who and what I am.  In my next blog post I will talk about some of the people that also had a great influence on my development.  Stay tuned, I don't think it will be long for part 2 to be here.